Oct 13, 2026

Last Sunday, October 11th, the cyclocross season in Stuttgart started for me with the Prolog of the Goldene Ananas. It is a guerilla series: 45 minutes of racing, the location gets announced only one or two days before, and the whole thing is much more about having fun than about results. After the Alb-Gold Trophy and the Biscuit Cup rounds this was the first time in a while that I wasn’t just curious how my legs would be. I actually felt good.

That is not a given. In the beginning of fall I was sick again and again. Nothing big, just a little bit, but enough to ruin every second week of training. So I’m happy to say that I’m slowly feeling like myself again.

The track

The course was great. Technical, but not in a “stuck in the mud” way. Short version of what was in there:

• a steep descent on a trail through the forest, with multiple dismounting points
• a meadow
• a pump track
• one steep ramp
• two sand pits, and in one of them you could use a children’s carousel on a playground to swing yourself around 😄
• and in the middle of it all a rather long uphill

That uphill is where the race was decided for me. I seem to be coming back to my strengths from the past: every single lap I crushed the competition up there.

The plan

So the strategy was quickly formed. Go ultra hard on the climb and rest on the rest of the course to be prepared again for the next one. Not very sophisticated, but in a 45 minute race it works pretty well if you know where your strength is. And it’s also a lot less stressful than trying to be fast everywhere.

The root, the mud and the branch

There was one section on the climb that I want to talk about. It started with a huge root going uphill, followed by a 2 meter mud section and then a rather big branch lying across the track. Normally this would be no problem if you could carry some speed into it. But this was all still uphill, so nobody had any speed. Everyone was dismounting, dragging their bike up and getting back on when it went downhill again.

The first three laps I did the same. Then I started to play around a bit:

• The root was the easy part. After a few tries I was able to get over it quickly.
• In the mud it was difficult to keep traction. But with a bit of wiggling it was possible.
• Then I reached the branch with almost no speed and not much traction. No chance to get over it like this.

What I found out is that when I move my line a bit to the right there is a smaller sub-branch. I could use it as a ramp to get over the main branch. I had to go into the bushes a bit for this, but it was worth it. 🙃

Once I got this right I was able to string the whole section together and ride it from the bottom to the top. I saved a lot of time there and overtook plenty of people who were still pushing their bikes. This was great fun.

The numbers

Strava says 12 laps, 48:42 moving time, 9 km and 251 hm. Average heart rate was 171 bpm (max 185) with an average power of 134 W. My best 5 minutes were at 174 W, the best 20 minutes at 142 W. Not impressive numbers on paper, but cyclocross is not really about watts. Power is all over the place with sand, mud and dismounts.

What I like more is the consistency. Ten of my twelve laps on the timed lap segment were between 3:21 and 3:42. My fastest lap was 2:43.

Also interesting: an average heart rate of 171 means that the “rest on the rest of the course” part wasn’t really resting. It was more “ride a bit less hard”. With sand, ramps and a pump track there is not much time to recover anyway.

The results are not published yet, so I have no idea where I finished. I’ll update this post as soon as they are out.

What did I learn

• Go and look for alternative lines. Everybody dismounting doesn’t mean the section is not rideable. Most of the time it just means nobody tried.
• Experiment, but only when the pace is safe. I did the first three laps the safe way and used the later ones to play around. That felt like a good compromise.
• A race with a strong climb is a race for me. I should look for more cyclocross courses like this one.
• Feeling like myself again is a good feeling. Let’s hope the sniffles stay away now.

Next one is the 1st round on November 15th. Looking forward to it.

racecyclocross